Monday, January 15, 2018

More internet service providers in the Netherlands have been ordered to block access to The Pirate Bay, even though the country’s Supreme Court is yet to make a final ruling on whether web-blocking should be allowed as an anti-piracy tactic in the country.

In 2014, an appeals court sided with the internet firms, ruling that the Pirate Bay web-block that had been put in place by a lower court was “ineffectual” and might “constitute an infringement of [people’s] freedom to act at their discretion”.

BREIN then took the matter to the Dutch Supreme Court, which in turn asked the European Courts Of Justice whether European law had any issues with web-blocking, and the possible “infringement of people’s freedom to act at their discretion” it might cause.

Last year European judges basically gave the all-clear for national courts in the European Union to instigate web-blocks on copyright grounds if they so wished. And so the case returned to the Dutch Supreme Court, which still needs to decide whether forcing Ziggo and XS4ALL to block The Pirate Bay is a proportionate sanction in this specific case.

Last week the web-blocking order was extended to cover other ISPs in the country, including KPN, Tele2, T-Mobile, Zeelandnet and CAIW. Some of those companies objected to web-blocking in court, but their concerns were dismissed by judges.

Which means the wider web-block party can get underway with immediate effect. Although, all of this is still subject to that final Supreme Court judgement on the matter.